Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/133

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CAUSES FOR SELF-IMMOLATION
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bidden. It is hardly likely, indeed, that Hindu women would go to the length of committing a crime which must render their lot much worse than before! At the same time I am by no means inclined to attribute these voluntary sacrifices to an excess of conjugal affection. We should, for instance, be greatly mistaken were we to allow ourselves to be deceived by the noisy lamentations which wives are accustomed to raise on the death of their husbands, and which are no more than rank hypocrisy. During the long period of my stay in India, I do not recall two Hindu marriages characterized by a union of hearts and displaying true and mutual attachment.

A TYPE OF BRAHMAN WOMAN.

When a woman, after mature deliberation, has once declared that she desires to be burned alive with her deceased husband, her decision is considered irrevocable. She cannot afterwards retract; and should she refuse to proceed of her own free will to the funeral pyre, she would be dragged to it by force. The Brahmans who regulate all the proceedings of the tragedy,

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